kraftpaperhat!

OPERATION CHLORINE

A scenario for Violence.

Churning, nauseous, the bottom falling out, a colorless river, stones on the banks, hot summer, a world that feels too thin, too bright, too unbelievable.

Overview

The Department has dredged up something true and fundamental from God's bloated body, our Mother and our Grave.

Wet, pallid flesh as if waterlogged, stacked on itself a layer at a time, is luminous in the glare of the ripening moon.

It is the particulate of Creation itself. They exposed two people in Susanville, CA to this material for observation before killing and dismembering the subjects to conceal the experiment.

Working Group HARVESTER is activated to conduct urgent containment after local law enforcement identifies two severed right hands as belonging to one man, Roy Martin.

Near the site of the operation, lumps of three dismembered human bodies grow new flesh from the forest floor where they were buried, still living.

It smells sweet and smoky in the dying summer heat.

Operation CHLORINE

It is September 3, 2020. The operation begins with an encoded spam email:

SUBJ: Quick money available for U!

I Know you have been looking for work recently. Simply Tell us what work you are looking for and our Online associates will connect you with businesses. Pay comes in imediately. Many people have used our service. All have Reported Yearly Sales of over $1,00,000. we would be Very happy to work with you on this opportunity. I can tell you that, personally, this has let me Live Life the way i have always wanted. Everything you want could be yours. $2300 for Home Rennovation Services! and more!

best, lisa

Then, later:

"&xz $%~! |p#*$'x{{t ab__ w#$

(QUIK STOP MARYSVILLE 2300 HRS)

Case Officer BRADLEY meets the Working Group in the parking lot of a Quik Stop in Marysville, CA at 2300hrs. He speaks barely over the sound of traffic, while leaning on his car, a scuffed silver Honda Accord. His voice is cold. His eyes hide behind a pair of Oakley sunglasses. He does not tolerate failure, fearing what it would cost, and will take extreme action to close out loose ends if needed.

He carries a concealed .38 revolver with two speed loaders, and is an Elite in Violence, as a now-retired FBI HRT member and GWOT combat veteran. There are two semi-automatic AR-15 rifles and a pump-action shotgun in the trunk, with plenty of ammunition. There is also a Pelican case containing an 6” rod of an unknown material composition which rapidly putrefies exposed flesh.

He loves his daughter very much.

Marysville is an uneasily aging city, once one of the largest in California. It is a junction of HWY 20 and HWY 70. Almost a quarter of its residents now are below the poverty line. Something about the place feels like it is trying to crawl into you. It is very exposed to the sky.

Quik Stop on B St is a cramped gas station and convenince store sit beside a sunworn parking lot and empty lot. Train tracks run behind the station, atop a gravel fill. Across B St is a shallow lake. Trash litters a pitted road behind the station. BRADLEY parks for a few hours before the meeting time, pretending to sleep. While he gives the briefing, his eyes flicker across the lot.

Timeline

H-Cell was activated for Operation REDEYE after a panicked 911 call by Joanne was flagged by a Friendly dispatcher. While in the area, they tracked down Roy Martin based on social media posts of game camera footage near his mobile home on Ash St. After brief planning, they killed them both in a single night, and loaded them into the trunk of a car.

On September 2nd, the Lassen County Sheriff's Office received a report from a hiker in Lassen National Forest who located human remains along a trail. Dep. Coroner Shane Owen collected the remains and they were transported for analysis to the Washoe County Medical Examiner's Office, where they were identified as two right hands belonging to Roy Martin, who had been missing since August 5th.

In this time, residue from the body dump has leeched into the groundwater (Susanville's only supply), and the whole town is experiencing trace exposure. The effects at this point are subtle, perceptual, and emotional. After two months, bodies fruit and burst.

On September 3rd, 2020, Working Group HARVESTER is tasked to identify, contain, and conceal all unnatural occurrences connected with this case.

They are issued a single burner cellphone to contact the case officer with reports and requests. This is a rapid response, attempting to get ahead of further evidence search efforts. No cover or official authorization has been secured.

The Working Group is on its own for now.

Locations

Roy Martin's Mobile Home is located on Ash St, near the entrance to the Sleepy Hollow Mobile Home Park and RV, a few hundred feet from the road. The lot is unremarkable. It has not yet been cleared. Sun-worn lawn sculptures lean untouched in front of the blackened remains of the single-wide.

Joanne and Cristian Parry's House sits near the end of Shasta St, at the southern extremity of town.

The National Forest is webbed with access roads. 50% chance of encountering Infected Deer d100 feet away.

The body dump occurred off Forest Route 31N02 in Lassen National Forest, north of Susanville, near Black Mountain.

Pieces of the Dismembered have reassembled under the soil, reaching for each other with strands of newborn human flesh. They can speak. They are embedded in the forest floor where they are growing organs in the soil. Long arms flop like roots. A milk-white fluid spills from puckered wounds in the angelic flesh. Their faces press up, spitting, from the earth.

Their bodies have spread through about an acre of forest. There, the ground is soft and unsteady. Eyes peel and blink between pine bark. The branch of a tree ends in human fingers, a hand grasping to be held.

The Dismembered are in a state of hazy, interconnected pleasure, but still remember, still speak. They want to take care of you. They do not know where they are. They do not want to die. They want to live.

Please let them live.

Kurt's Safehouse is a small, largely empty rental home in the center of Susanville. It is rented under Kurt Mamo (a longtime Alias backed up by official documentation). There, he keeps a 30-06 hunting rifle and a small supply of ammunition, a stash of preserved food, as well as heavy body armor, and the plastic bags and other material for body disposal.

Spring Ridge Self-Storage contains a Department cache. Inside, the Particle is held within a solid gold reliquary container, with a glass front. It pulses hopefully. This is stored in a large pelican case underneath a bunch of junk as cover — gathered from yard sales and thrift stores in the area.

The Washoe County Medical Examiner's Office has placed Roy Martin's two right hands in refrigerated sample/specimen storage, to be disposed of within 30 days. They are still awaiting a complete examination.

The Hands

They have grown. The hands have fused wrist-to-wrist. The fingers have multiplied, jutting at odd angles of the palm, flopping bonelessly, nails coiling out. Pine needles grow out of the pores. Two more hands have formed in the cold, at either end. And the fingers are mixed up. They belong to all three of the Dismembered — and some to Darryl Nguyen, passed to Kathryn's body by his infection. All the prints are recoverable.

They move. Slowly, but they move. They press and slap against the refrigerator door. They are gentle, almost loving. And they will attempt to crawl up a human body, fill the mouth with fingers, make you one body, as you belong.

The Hands are Untrained in Violence, and fight like a human being.

Evidence

Observation Team

The Department is experimenting with a particle of creation. They seek to observe it's effects in the general population.

Kurt Mamo remains on-site. All other members of the observation team have left, and monitor remotely through a network of concealed cameras in the town, as well as the unauthorized use of intelligence resources.

He is a former Army Ranger and was a successful civilian contractor for a while. Now, under Department orders, he exposes people to the Particle to see what happens, like a child playing with ants. He is a big man with a long beard and dark, close-cropped hair.

He is a Natural Born Killer. He carries a .45 ACP HK MARK 23 handgun, threaded for a suppressor, a concealed fighting knife, and a pump-action shotgun in his truck. He alternates between camping in the National Forest and staying in the motel under an Alias: River Mason.

He believes the United States should be a Christian nation, and that research into the Particle is a way of discovering God's underlying composition and offers a route to ascend to His side as a seraphim, given the right method of intake. He intentionally exposed himself to small doses the Particle, and has faded into a humming, rapturous high which is only elevated by killing.

Now, he lays low in Susanville.

H-Cell

Andrew Cooper (Agent HARVEY, ACTIVE) is a longtime FBI agent, taut, blonde, and convinced that nothing is real anymore. Following Operation REDEYE, he was promoted to Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC), and transferred to Las Vegas, NV. His wife wants to open up the marriage. She is already seeing someone else. His son cheats in school. It doesn't matter. They're not real, either. He has failed to respond to wellfare checks from the Group.

They live in a small, miserable suburb in a two-story house.

He carries a Glock 17M in a low-profile belt holster, and a fighting knife when off-duty. He is Experienced in violence. He keeps an unregistered AR-15 in a concealed compartment in the trunk of his car, with 6 spare magazines and a box of 5.56 rounds, alongside a makeshift garrote, cordless reciprocating saw, contractor bags, and several forms of accelerant.

Should some sign of the investigation in Susanville hit the news, he will pack up his car and drive out in an attempt to complete the cover up to protect himself.

Darryl Nguyen (Agent HAROLD, INFECTED) is a tall, fastidious former surgeon. His wife Juliana Nguyen is pregnant with their first child after six years of fertility treatment. The child is not human. It is angelic in its perfection and hunger.

He is Blooded in violence, and carries a concealed S&W Bodyguard .380 pistol and a small canister of pepper spray. He has become a Fruiting Body since the killing, shuddering as his body gathers new layers.

Consequently, he has failed to respond to wellfare checks from the Group. He is due back from an approved vacation on September 6th.

Kathryn Fischer (Agent HARRIET, DECEASED) was shot while attempting to subdue Roy Martin. The shotgun took off a large part of her jaw, and destroyed her airway. Her team dismembered her body and buried her with the others.

Kathryn was a single mother to Tracy Fischer, who is now grown, estranged, and living in Boise, ID). She had no friends by the time of her death. She was having an affair with Darryl Nguyen (agent HAROLD), and was exposed to the Particle through fluid exchange. This has kept her body alive in the soil.

Local LE

Shane Owen, is the Lassen County Sheriff Deputy Coroner assigned to the human remains case. He's a longtime area resident, just made Sergeant, and shares custody of two children (Max and Lily).

His ex-wife, Nina Robles, works in administration for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) at High Desert State Prison (HDSP). She's looking to move somewhere with more going on, but doesn't want the kids to have to move between parents.

He carries a Glock 17 with two spare magazines, a taser, handcuffs, and flashlight on his belt. There is a carbine and a shotgun in his vehicle. He is Trained in violence.

Dr. Kathleen Delgado, Washoe County Deputy Medical Examiner.

The Test Subjects

They were offered $2,000 to join a medical experiment by a man in a polo shirt on the doorstep. They were given a single dose of the Particle, and told they would receive a survey in about a year. Observation began. And their bodies began to change. Kurt’s team selected subjects based on no fixed criteria. This round, only two accepted.

This has happened in other towns before. The observation team destroys the evidence in most cases, but not until the symptoms have run farther into their course.

Joanne Parry, (21) worked as an administrative assistant for Lassen County while attending Lassen College to study Psychology. She was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, having converted at 17 after being involved in a car accident which killed two of her friends.

Roy Martin, (47) was two months into recovery for methamphetamine use when he was strangled and dismembered in his home. He worked as a handyman when possible. His family is largely estranged, and have not heard from him in a while.

He fought back with a shotgun when the Agents broke into his single-wide mobile home, fatally wounding Kathryn Fischer. He was eventually subdued, strangled, and carried to the trunk of a car for disposal. They then set his mobile home on fire. Even within the trunk, their bodies began to slide together.

Local LE initially believed his disappearance and the destruction of his house were due to relapse and possible psychotic break. This has changed since two right hands with his fingerprints were discovered by a hiker within Lassen National Forest, having clawed their way out of the body dump.

Hunting Party

Cristian Parry, (25) Joanne’s older brother. A 3%er flag hangs in his living room. He is not an active member, though he frequently posts on various militia movement and 2A subreddits. He currently works at Walmart, stocking shelves.

He saw H-Cell trailing his sister, and received several worried texts from her shortly before the killing. She believed she had a stalker. He suspects a government conspiracy is involved, though he does not know why. He will disclose very little.

He carries a folding pocket knife and a concealed Sig Sauer P320 daily, and keeps a Daniel Defense Mk18 10.3” rifle with holographic sight in his pickup, along with four magazines stored in a pouch behind the passenger seat. He has a .300 Winchester Magnum hunting rifle, and a substantial cache of 5.56 and .300 ammunition at his home in Susanville. He is drilled in violence, and waiting for the people who killed his sister to return so he can hunt them down and kill them. He uses basic military tactics, but struggles under pressure; he has never been shot at before.

Aiden Hernandez is Cristian's only friend from high school. He's "between jobs," and makes cash selling weed to teenagers. Cristian has convinced him of the conspiracy and he has taken to joining Cristian on "patrol" around Susanville in a 2010 Ford Focus. He carries an over-under double-barrel shotgun in his car, a gas station karambit knife in a pocket, and is Untrained in violence.

Entities

Particle of Creation

The nutrient from which the universe was grown, slick cosmic blubber dredged up from God's fertile body. Exposure causes unrelenting growth, melting, layering. The world smears, stretches like gum, shines oily and polychrome, blends together.

The Department obtained a sample through a facility in the central valley which worked for years to distill the imported reproductive matter of plants and animals into their fundamental factor through a slush of birth and fertilization. It has become the centerpiece of an experimental unit, testing on unsuspecting victims across the country. The latest such experiment is in Susanville, CA.

Prolonged contact or fluid exchange prompts a check for infection. (75% chance.)

The body begins to grow inward immediately. There is the sense of being a conduit to something huge and full. After a week, there is a 50% chance to ignore lethal Down results as the wounds close plump and blistered with God’s flesh. It takes about a month to become a Fruiting Body.

Infested Deer

Lassen National Forest

Too many legs. Eyes that leak. Skin overfull and straining. Delicate filament extending out from the head. Human eyes peer out from the forehead, pupils full. A human face works its way to the surface, eventually.

Evasion: -2 (fast)

Shooting: N/A

Melee: 2d8

Harm: Roll 1d20 when hit:

1-11 flesh sloughs away, spilling pale wet organs (+1 evasion)
12-15 antlers split and writhe (+1d8 melee)
16-18 gouts of milky blood (+2 to future harm rolls)
19-20 Spine broken, helpless

Fruiting Body

Darryl Nguyen

Human bodies grow bones, muscle, skin, hair, teeth, and tissue as the Particle takes over. Layer upon layer forms over the old corpus, which swells with new and unnecessary organs. Limbs and fingers extend and proliferate, weeping milk. The effect is mostly human from a distance. Up close, it is something smooth, plump, throbbing. Life that begets life.

This process brings a terrible fucking fullness, a longing to care and feed. There is still a mind in there, preserved beyond human death, suspended in a lurid ecstasy.

Evasion: -2 (upsettingly fast)

Shooting: as normal.

Melee: 3d6 (30% chance of infection)

Harm: As normal, but the body rises uninjured in an hour if not utterly destroyed while down. Injuries heal in an angelic vision of what could have been; eyes, scales, and teeth sprouting.

The Child

Darryl and Juliana Nguyen's Offspring

It shall emerge colorless and small. It moves with absolute grace. It is precise. It is silent. It is a creature of inhuman perfection, conceived as it was by a fragment of God.

It shall grow into a Messiah.

Evasion: -4 (absolute grace)

Shooting: +2

Melee: 1D12, Natural Born Killer

Harm: Goes down and rolls injury checks as normal.